Other VoIP traffic-analysis options

In addition to the voice over IP traffic analysis products tested, other vendors also now offer products featuring various VoIP-analysis capabilities. We've assembled information about those products here as provided to us by the vendors.

Some of these products were not eligible to be included in our test because they only address one or two points of our overall criteria. Other other cases, vendors declined to participate because their products are not ready for public testing.

The products perform a variety of roles in the VoIP environment. Two are bandwidth management systems, which help ensure that high-priority and time-sensitive traffic, such as VoIP, receive expeditious handling and adequate network bandwidth. A few are protocol analyzers, which aid in isolating, understanding and troubleshooting complex VoIP protocol exchanges. Then there are performance-monitoring tools, which passively or actively track specific applications and traffic types, such as VoIP, and identify problems or undertake corrective actions. Other categories include: VoIP traffic generators, which exercise VoIP infrastructure equipment by issuing simulated VoIP call sequences and traffic streams; and network simulators, which replicate and model varied conditions for VoIP service and traffic planning.

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In addition to the voice over IP traffic analysis products tested, other vendors also now offer products featuring various VoIP-analysis capabilities. We've assembled information about those products here as provided to us by the vendors.

Some of these products were not eligible to be included in our test because they only address one or two points of our overall criteria. Other other cases, vendors declined to participate because their products are not ready for public testing.

The products perform a variety of roles in the VoIP environment. Two are bandwidth management systems, which help ensure that high-priority and time-sensitive traffic, such as VoIP, receive expeditious handling and adequate network bandwidth. A few are protocol analyzers, which aid in isolating, understanding and troubleshooting complex VoIP protocol exchanges. Then there are performance-monitoring tools, which passively or actively track specific applications and traffic types, such as VoIP, and identify problems or undertake corrective actions. Other categories include: VoIP traffic generators, which exercise VoIP infrastructure equipment by issuing simulated VoIP call sequences and traffic streams; and network simulators, which replicate and model varied conditions for VoIP service and traffic planning.

Allot Communications - NetEnforcer

The NetEnforcer family of products sit at the LAN/WAN boundary of an enterprise or ISP network to enforce administrator-defined policies through the use of quality-of-service (QoS) traffic shaping algorithms and by monitoring network activity. NetEnforcer does this by implementing a Policy-Powered Networking package that includes a NetWizard setup utility to auto-discover network applications to determine which protocols affect performance and which should be managed. Then you use the QoS Policy Form to define QoS attributes for the desired policies. Finally, minimum and maximum percentages of bandwidth are assigned and traffic is prioritized from 1 to 10.

The family of products comprises a hardware/software platform, which monitors/reports on bandwidth and the packet loss of VoIP sessions. VoIP performance is improved by controlling jitter and bandwidth allocation using NetEnforcer's Traffic Monitor, which refines established policies to maintain maximum network control and application performance.

www.allot.com
NetEnforcer Cost: $3,500 to $14,000, depending on link bandwidth
Category: Bandwidth management system

AppDancer Networks - AppDancer/FA

AppDancer/FA (Flow Analyzer) is a VoIP and network application monitor and analysis tool. This software product monitors network devices and various applications, including VoIP, and all associated IP flows. It provides a detailed, yet easily navigable view of the inner- and inter-workings of many network applications. VoIP activity can be viewed at the call-control level - H.323 and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) are both supported - as well as at the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) "stream" level. The software runs on Microsoft platforms including Windows 2000 Professional, NT 4.0 SP6, and XP workstation.